Microsoft Windows 7 News |
- Search Engine Growth … and Decline
- Windows 7 Service Pack 1 RTM Leaked, Available For Download
- Windows Phone’s 3 Biggest Obstacles
Posted: 15 Jan 2011 07:24 PM PST Last year Yahoo and Microsoft agreed to share search technologies. A view noted by some that it could only help Microsoft in the long run and hurt Yahoo. Some recent growth stats seem to bear this out. After Yahoo and Microsoft finally integrated their massive search technology and advertising partnership, ComScore is reporting that Yahoo’s explicit core search share in the U.S. had declined in December. . ComScore is an internet marketing research company providing marketing data and services to many of the Internet’s largest businesses. ComScore tracks all Internet data on its surveyed computers in order to study online behavior. Their October to November figures and November to December figure are out now. The results show that growth for Bing is small but steady, and a decline for Yahoo has been small but steady as well.  Comscore - October to November .  Comscore - November to December Figures What type of technology change could it offer to consumers? More exact results would make a considerable difference. Consider that many Google search results are now starting to look like advertising results, and don’t actually produce the answer that users want, this may be the change to make Yahoo a more viable search mechanism. Bing considers itself as a “decision” search engine; something that allows users to make decisions. Still, Bing’s algorithm’s are different from Google’s but they frequently don’t give the complete answer set that consumers need. Yahoo has an opportunity, if they can take advantage of it. Related posts:
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Posted: 15 Jan 2011 07:24 AM PST There is still some uncertainty about the alleged Windows 7 Service Pack 1 RTM build considering that Microsoft has not yet officially confirmed the final build string. Even if that is so, the service pack version that several sources claim to be the Windows 7 SP1 RTM release has leaked to the Internet. The release is available on various torrent websites but also on respected download portals such as Softpedia. Softpedia for instance offers download links for both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the service pack. The downloads are hosted on the Softpedia server which means that they have been thoroughly checked for malicious code. The build number is 7601.17514.101119-1850, the downloads have a size of 538 Megabytes (Windows 7 SP1 32-bit) and 903 Megabytes (Windows 7 SP1 64-bit). The Windows 7 Service Pack 1 will introduce a few new features to the operating system, namely: Additional support for communication with third-party federation services Improved HDMI audio device performance Corrected behavior when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents Enhanced support for additional identities in RRAS and IPsec Support for Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) Change to behavior of "Restore previous folders at logon" functionality This indicates that it is reasonable for the majority of users to wait until the service pack is officially released by Microsoft. Only users who need the additional functionality and users who want to test it may benefit from downloading and installing the leaked version directly. The service pack can only be installed on Windows 7 systems that do not have another version of the service pack installed. Users need to uninstall beta and release candidates of the service pack before they can install the RTM release. The service pack can also only be installed on RTM versions of Windows 7. What’s your take on the leak? Will you download and install it, or wait until the official release announcement is made by Microsoft? Related posts:
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Posted: 15 Jan 2011 01:35 AM PST  Nobody can ignore reports that Windows Phone sales have so far been middling and the reception the handsets have received has been lukewarm. So if there is a problem what could it be? I’ve spent some time now with Windows Phone and also talking to resellers at mobile phone companies. I’ve identified three major barriers that Windows Phone is having trouble breaking through. Android ResellersThe biggest problem is resellers in mobile phone shops who are recommending Google Android phones. I have personal experience of a great many completely discounting Windows Phone and saying Android is the best, Android is the way you want to go. This seems odd as Android itself is a deeply flawed mobile OS and it’s really HTC with their Sense UI that have made the operating system popular. You can see this in that the very same sales people always pointed me at an HTC handset.Sense is good but it’s their improved dialer and social networking integration that are saving the underlying OS. There really is absolutely no logic to the recommendations these sales people are making as even the iPhone is far better at these core tasks than a bare Android OS, and we know that Windows Phone has been built from the ground up to be a phone first and have social networking built in. Windows MobileThis brings us on to the next barrier that Windows Phone is facing. Many people including myself and technology blogger Paul Thurrott have said that Microsoft should never have used the Windows brand on this OS, and I still believe that’s correct. While I completely understand that Microsoft want to harness their biggest and strongest brand, there’s a lot of bad feeling about for Windows Mobile and this will still be here years from now.People don’t seem to be able to seperate Windows Mobile from Windows Phone. The two are completely different and share no underlying code whatsoever, neither do they have any similarities on the front end. Unfortunately this is a case of guilt by association. If your twin brother killed the neighbour’s dog, you also can expect to get shunned by local residents. Lateness to MarketThen there’s another problem that brings us back to the first point about sales staff in mobile phone shops. Windows Phone is simply too late to market. Smartphones are everywhere and Microsoft have an enormous mountain to climb here simply to get noticed.Ok so some brands such as Symbian are on the way out, but not before they give Windows Phone a bloody nose doing it. In this Windows Phone has one major advantage in that it just looks so unlike any other mobile OS. This could also turn out to be a curse too though in the short term, as people shy away from something that’s so different from all the other phones. The thinking with this being that “all these other phones just work, so why would you do something so different, it must cause problems”. So what needs doing?This of course, we all know, isn’t the case but it’s how the OS is perceived by consumers that will make the difference. The best hope that Windows Phone has in the long term is for its users to love it and evangelise about it to their friends. In time this will ripple outwards and these barriers will slowly be broken down.The good news is that with a company like Microsoft behind it, Windows Phone is going nowhere. It’s hardware partner network is enormous and there will always be interest in making new handsets. My answer to LG though, who we reported yesterday were “disappointed” with Windows Phone 7 sales would be to make better handsets. The Optima 7 might have lovely screen but the rest of it is awful. I don’t believe that any of the hurdles Windows Phone is facing have to do with it being a version 1 product, and I genuinely believe the biggest problem it faces, and I have first hand experience of this, is sales staff evangelising about Android and especially the Android HTC handsets. If Microsoft is going to win hearts and minds, they have to do this with these people first. Related posts:
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